Last week, the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee held a hearing titled “Building Consensus to Address Housing Challenges” that covered a wide range of housing industry issues that make housing unaffordable, including LIHTC, zoning and land use regulation, Housing First strategies to ending homelessness, flood insurance and mortgage fees.
The hearing featured testimony from Lou Tisler, executive director of the National NeighborWorks Association (NNA), Vanessa Brown Calder, director of opportunity and family policy studies at the Cato Institute, and Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Each spoke to what Congress could do to help ease pressures in the housing market. Examples include increasing the affordable housing supply, limiting regulatory constraints, and passing bipartisan housing-focused legislation. The witnesses mentioned a slew of different housing proposals during the hearing, including the Choice in Affordable Housing Act, the Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act, the Eviction Crisis Act, the HOME Investment Partnership Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2023, the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, and the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act.
